Vietnam doesn't need an amuseument park-- Hoi An's Old Town is a major attraction! It's a mixture of old buildings with lots of character, a clothing or bag store almost everywhere you look, and a ton of tourists (really, it felt a lot like walking through Epcot and could be the place with the highest concentration of white tourists in all of Vietnam). There's even 1950s music that gets played over the loudspeakers in the evening, and a lantern celebration takes place every evening! And if that isn't enough for you, there are Vietnamese cultural lessons (language and cooking), music performances, and more for you to "immerse" yourself in.

If you're expecting "real" Vietnam, walk a few blocks outside of Old Hoi An. Additionally you can go to Cham Island or the neighboring countryside area (aka. Marble Mountains) or perhaps a less-tourist focused city (Danang). However if you just think of Old Hoi An as its own thing (like an Asian Epcot) then it's quite enjoyable. We bumped into a family we had met in Phong Nha and they were saying that it was a pleasant city to be in because of the pedestrian walkways and they didn't have to constantly worry about their children walking around (here sidewalks are sidewalks, as opposed to scooter parking, as in Hanoi). Lots of great buildings and temples, but after a while you kind of wish there was more to the buildings than just a plaque and a bunch of tourists all crowded around (especially annoying with those selfie sticks).

All the blue dots on the map are their ticket/information centers-- in order to visit the 20+ attractions in Hoi An (old houses, museums, temples, etc) you need to buy a $6 ticket (120,000 Dong) that will allow you entry into 5 different places.

Food in Hoi An

They're famous for certain things, particularly a noodle (cua lua? it looked like not-so-soupy udon) and chicken rice (Com ga). Frankly I guess I must love Singapore's Hainanese Chicken rice (or maybe it's that chicken skin) too much because the shredded Hoi An chicken white meat just wasn't doing it for me. The other dish that I've always wanted to try (but it's hard to find and I always assumed it was an omelet) was banh xeo, a fried rice pancake with shrimp and pork and beansprouts that gets rolled with a rice wrapper and lettuce and some papaya salad. It's quite good (even if it is pretty oily).

Places I approve of (I'll put pictures of the rest of the food up eventually):Morning Glory/Mrs. Vu's Market/any of those restaurants-- has great food from all parts of Vietnam (very very tasty and authentic)

Streets/Streets Too which is a pretty good restaurant that takes in orphans and trains them to work in a restaurant-- they force all the local workers to speak English to each other all the time so that they become fluent enough to be able to work at any other restaurant or resort catering to foreigners.

Bale Well isn't bad-- I think we could have sprung for the chicken rice instead (Joe thought that he didn't need to try the Hoi An Chicken Rice since he's already had Singapore's version). The locals ordered it and it looked really good (though they did make a pretty good version of banh xeo). An ok-decent restaurant.

Didn't really find many restaurants in the area where the locals went (and I wasn't sure how good the street food was in terms of cleanliness so I actually didn't have a banh mi off the street or try their deep fried shrimp pancake). The one place I found was a bit out of the way (north of Tran Hung Dao about a block west of Lao Cai) there seemed to be a place where a lot of locals were eating (I think it was close to the ride-a-Vespa-through-Vietnam tour agency).

How to get here

Great view and different feel to the city when you're on a motorcycle

The only time I'll ever ride on a motorcycle (probably)-- totally worth it!

Initially I read that folks would charge $20 (400,000-500,000 Dong) for a taxi to go from Danang train station to Hoi An. These folks stopped me on the way out and had me at 300,000 for a minibus ride-- and then convinced us to go on the back of their bikes (they had Danang Easy Riders on it-- which is sort of a group of folks who guide you around Vietnam on a motorbike). He stopped for coffee and tried to convince us to ride out to the countryside (Ho Chi Minh Trail, Marble Mountains, etc) but I was pretty tired of seeing the same scenery and really wanted to spend time at the beach and so after briefly stopping at a tailor, the Easy Riders dropped us off at our hotel and drove away.

Getting Clothes Made

Admittedly I was skeptical about getting anything made (Louisa's previous experience wasn't very good and she didn't recommend it). Our motorcycle drivers were obviously getting a commission from Tuong's (located @ 67 Trần Hưng Đạo). However after some bartering (I didn't get super local prices but all things considered, it was great service throughout the fitting process). You need to come back for a minimum of three fittings, and they had actually messed up my order (I wanted 1 shirt to be sort of a round neck blouse instead of a button-down, and had asked for non-skinny legged suit pants) but they actually made the shirt for me for free to apologize for their mistake, and kept re-doing the pants until I was happy with them (the tailor even came out to see how the clothes fit me each time I came by for my fitting). They packed my new clothes for me, cleaned up the stitching where I requested, and gave free water and wet wipes every time we came through. Overall pretty impressed with the efficiency and the quality, and now I have some custom silk shirts!

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Adela Wee

Traveling the world since 1994. Taking notes about the places I've been so that friends and family can go there too!